Reunions and Other Little Surprises
by Nitrobot
Summary: Maccadam's Old Oil House- perfect for spark days and severe trine trust issues (commission for Valong)
1. Chapter 1

_My very first commissioned fic for Valong on deviantart... started way back in February and only just finished up. I put off uploading it here until it was completely finished, so I wouldn't be left with huge gaps in between chapters. This was definitely one of the hardest fics I've ever had to write (especially considering I'm not at all a fan of Starscream, the comics, or even Windblade recently...), but the challenge did me some good :)_

 _The main pairings will be Starscream/Windblade and Chromia/Ironhide, but there'll be hints/cameos of a few others as well later on._

 **xx**

"Five whole klicks and our drinks still aren't here. That's it, I'm leaving."

"Sit down, Chromia, the waiter's barely just made it to the bar," Windblade said with a sigh, pulling the blue femme back down on her booth seat by her servo. "Anyway, you get a sparkday discount. You don't wanna waste it, do you?"

Chromia huffed through her scowl, crossing her servos over her chest and legs under the table so she could resist the urge to trip someone up. "I guess not." She glared all around at the other natives of Maccadam's celebrating the miracle of peace- however temporary it might be with a mech like Starscream orchestrating it. "Surprised this dump of a planet even _has_ sparkday celebrations," she remarked. "Thought they'd be too preoccupied with blowing each other up to make it past the one stellar cycle mark intact."

Nautica snapped her optics away from a spot of rust on one of the roof beams to stare offended at her friend. "This _dump_ was home to our ancestors, and it still is to us-"

"At least until Thunderclash comes to his senses and hauls aft back to Caminus." As usual, Chromia's sourness was like a Decepticon army; intimidating, disheartening, and near impossible to budge without some hefty weaponry that both other femmes lacked. At least some high-grade usually managed to sweeten her, but with how busy the Oil House was it would be a while before any liquid savior was delivered to them.

"Well, this is the only place on Cybertron that's totally neutral, and we all deserve a break anyway," Nautica chirped, twirling her wrench idly. "Not to mention that Windy here needs to talk to some bots that aren't the size of a moon _-_ " Windblade's protest was covered by the purple femme's continued voice. "And _you_ could do with some social practice as well, Mia."

Chromia scoffed in disgust, as if she'd just suggested sharing her berth with a scraplet. "Oh, _please._ Just cause _you_ flirt with every spike-bearer in the vicinity-"

"Not _every_ one, just the cute ones!"Nautica protested with a pout.

"-doesn't mean I'm up for settling with some Cybertronian hick. What's a point of getting a bot to like me when I'm just gonna put a bullet between their optics a few klicks later?"

Nautica shrugged, closing her optics and throwing up her wrench to catch it blind with one servo. "No wonder a certain red mech is a little too scared to talk to you..." She opened her optics just in time to see Chromia's widen in what was unmistakebly worry.

"Ironhide said that?" She only remembered to wring the question of all distress and make it casual after it left her vocaliser, and by then it too late to change it. Regardless, she pretended she never said a thing and slumped down in her seat, the spitting image of a pouting sparkling. "What do I care what some Auto-butt thinks about me?"

"You tell me, Mia," was all Windblade cared to say on the matter, not eager to get into a brawl so early in the evening. She couldn't blame Chromia for feeling so sulky at the mention of her not-so-secret crush. Especially when there was a 'certain red mech' in her life as well, though at least she didn't have to fake her distaste for him.

Nautica sighed, leaning on the table and tapping digits against her faceplate, succumbing to the surly air that was filling the femmes' space. It didn't last long though, as her wandering optics caught sight of some fateful glyphs scrawled near the teeming bar. She perked up instantly and grinned at her companions. "I know something that might lighten the mood," she lilted, drawing an immediate groan from Chromia.

"Unless it's a Con I can kick around or a tall glass of Turbo, not interested."

As to be expected from her, Nautica's joy was completely unhindered."Karaoke night!"

Even Windblade shared Chromia's confusion, but unlike her she opted to keep it silent. "The pit is 'karo-key?' Sounds like some kind of rivet infection."

"It's an Earth thing one of the Autobots brought over here," Nautica explained, remembering how Nightbeat explained it to her when she was grilling him about his missions. "Nothing better to bring everyone together. You sing along to songs-"

"And what d'you know, it sounds about as much fun as a rivet infection," Chromia muttered, muffled further by the table as she slumped face-down on it.

"-and everyone joins in!" Nautica clasped her hands together, still grinning and looking at each of her friends in turn. "How about it?"

"Absolutely fragging _not_ ," was Chromia's obvious sentiment. Nautica only rolled her optics before turning them on Windblade, who nervously threaded her digits together while trying to think of a politer answer.

"Honestly, Nautica, I'm with Mia. It seems-"

"Like a blast? Just what we need to kick off our vacation?" Nautica jumped out of her seat at this point and leaned over the table, digits held under her chin.

"Like a one-way trip to pure humiliation," Windblade eventually managed to get through.

"Oh, come on, Windy, I'm not going up there myself," Nautica whined. "Most of the songs are duets and I'm not getting stuck with some random audio-impaired drone."

"For all you know, that'll be an improvement over me," the red femme muttered, drawing an idle circle in the table with her digit.

"Nonsense, come on! It'll be fun, I promise." In the end, Windblade wasn't given much choice as she was practically hauled over the table and through a makeshift path to the stage (most bots weren't drunk enough yet to be getting in the way of an over-excited wrench-wielding hovercraft, apparently). When she looked back wistfully at their booth, their drinks had arrived and Chromia was helping herself to all three of them through a straw. She laughed and waved at them, already half drunk by the look of her.

"Have fun, girls! Sing a sparkday one for me, will you?"

 _'I might as well be singing my funeral music...'_ Windblade grimly contemplated, the metal of her peds groaning as they dragged along the floor. Nautica, on the other servo, practically bounced up to the stage like a petrorabbit and catapulted herself to the front microphone. By the time Windblade summoned the resolve to limply hold the second one Nautica had already chosen a song and was prepping her vocaliser for the first few words appearing on the screen suspended in front of them.

 _'Primus, just do me a favour and drop me into the Pit right now.'_ It didn't help that Windblade's singing partner had chosen one of the worst songs possible- an old and unfortunately popular love song on Caminus that was favoured by teensparks. After having to hear it blaring through Nautica's quarters for most of the journey on the Vis Vitalis, she couldn't bear to listen to more than five nanoklicks of it before turning her audios off.

Still, at least all the repeated listening made her singing voice almost half-enjoyable as she trilled about meeting a mech at midnight. The crowd seemed to approve as well, from how they threw up whichever servos weren't occupied with high-grade glasses and cheered Nautica on.

"Your turn, Windy!" Nautica whispered, nudging her friend's side. Windblade only had time to glance over her verse before the words were highlighted, and she forced her glossa to stumble along to the bubbly tune of the music. She tried not to enjoy herself too much, feeling her faceplate burning as she crooned to strangers about a pretend unrequited love, but the standalone calls and cheers of encouragement from the bar crowd were infectious on her mood. A proud smile threatened to break past her nervous frown when she finished, vocaliser throbbing from hitting notes higher than she used when just speaking. If Nautica noticed Windblade's shift in demeanor, she didn't show it before soaring off on her own lines, dramatically grabbing her microphone and dancing across the stage. For her sake, Windblade hoped Brainstorm wasn't watching from some tucked away corner, though she couldn't check with her attention focused stubbornly on the lyric screen, not daring to look at everyone laughing at her below. Not even hearing what she swore was Chromia's own voice slurring a spontaneous harmonisation tempted her to glance over at their table, or Nautica winking in the direction of the bar.

It seemed like a long breem before the last few notes finally rang out from the speakers, and she and Nautica were free to go with sizzling faceplates and aching vocalisers while applause echoed behind them. Luckily Chromia had managed to save some of their own drinks for them while she was surrounded by her own empty cups, and Windblade gratefully downed her glass before sitting down at the sanctuary of their table.

"Not bad," Chromia hiccuped, blowing air idly through a straw. "Even had _me_ joining in. You ever think of releasing an album?"

"Don't push it, Mia," Windblade sighed, suppressing a bubble of air that threatened to rudely burp past her throat. Nautica had gulped down her own drink and was flushed with its effects, as well as her own tingling excitement. "That was so amazing! When we get back to Caminus, I'm not gonna rest until every bar has karaoke, even the strip ones!"

"Well, if you succeed, that'll be the only thing that'll make me happier to be here instead." Despite her outward shudder at the thought of Nautica's wish and drunkenness, Chromia managed to raise her glass in a toast. "To a not-so-terrible performance, and a not-so-terrible bar."

"And to all the audio receptors we _didn't_ destroy this evening," Windblade laughed as she raised her own, already feeling her self-consciousness shed as the high-grade took grip. Nautica clinked her one against her friends', tipping it back to get the last dredges of liquid.

"...And to Ironhide," Chromia mumbled to herself, seemingly letting her processor loose to the drink. "I heard rumours that that song's one of his favourites."


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, it wasn't the _worst_ five breems I ever wasted," Starscream reflected, optics flicking distastefully to each of the bar patrons as he shoved past them. It was still early in the evening, none of them were drunk enough to not recognise him as their leader. They should have been practically bowing before him as he walked, but he supposed just the fact someone wasn't trying to assassinate him yet was blessing enough.

Then again, he was certain one of his brothers would attract enough antagonism for all three of them.

"Yeah, where you're concerned I've had far worse." Skywarp snorted, confident that Starscream wouldn't be able to retaliate in his usual way. Not with the mandatory therapist's- Wrong, his name was? Skywarp never paid much attention aside from when Starscream was allowed to rant during their session- warnings of 'burst fuel lines caused by hyperaggression affecting internal energon temperature' still ringing about in the hollow space of his helm.

Thundercracker meanwhile already felt his own helm pounding just at the sound of his brother's smugness. After spending so many centuries stuck with it, Starscream's screeching was almost a blessed relief.

"Anyway, Cracker, I've been meaning to ask; how's that little organic creature of yours?" Even with the innocent sheen over Skywarp's optics, Thundercracker was in no mood to put up with his prodding tonight.

"Her name is Buster, and what do you care about her?"

Skywarp shrugged, managing to squeeze past two bots as he kept up with his companions. "Just curiosity. I never did get familiar with anything other than humans on Earth. I heard she was 'carrying' as well- puppies, I think they're called-?"

"No."

Skywarp stopped short with a confused splutter, almost genuine sounding. "What do you mean, 'no'?!"

"No, you can't have one of them. I don´t trust you and your clumsy digits." Thundercracker didn't pay much more mind to the purple mech's scandalised expression, as amusing as it was. Instead he turned to the only trine member he was sure had at least 50% of his processor still working properly. "Did we have to choose somewhere right in the middle of Iacon, Starscream? The Autobots may have accepted _you_ into their flock, but I can already feel someone's widow glaring at me."

Starscream scoffed in first dismission and then disgust as he realised he just stepped in a puddle of purged high-grade, with its source lying face down in it. " _Hardly,"_ he snarled, scraping his ped on the passed out mech's helm. _"_ I think all that time on Earth has damaged your memory core- have you forgotten Maccadam's is completely neutral ground?" Under any other circumstances Starscream would have scoffed at the notion of any place being 'neutral' even before the war, but the stellar cycle's events forced him to take a different perspective on just about everything nowadays. "Besides, all three factions have more reasons to hate me than digits on their servos, so don't think you're so special. But if you're _really_ scared about having someone poison your high-grade, find some Camiens to sit with."

Thundercracker merely rolled his optics, but Skywarp looked like a sparkling being faced with an energon cake, waggling his digits and grinning. "Don't mind if I do-"

"Get back here, Skywarp," Starscream growled, grabbing hold of his neck and hauling him backwards when he made to saunter past them. "Every femme's bound to have a 50 metre restraining order against you by now."

Skywarp huffed and struggled out of Starscream's grip, folding his servos over in a sulk when he regained his balance. "Come on, Scream! Scared I'll get carried off by my future sparkmate and leave you two all alone? Wasn't having to downgrade to that rust-bucket you call a frame enough to prove my _commitment_ to our trine?" He swept a servo over his chassis with an eyeridge raised. Another notion of the Primus-damned therapist, that they all share the same frame type again so their reunification went smoother.

"Besides, you're the one who sanctioned re-opening the space bridge, right?" He sidled closer to his now-scowling trine leader with a knowing glint in his optics. "Don't tell me you didn't expect the overflow of "hot stuff" straight from Caminus around here. Unless you were thinking of keeping them all to yourself...?"

Starscream practically threw himself down on a seat when they finally reached the bar, cradling his helm in his servo in a desperate effort to soothe how much it throbbed. "I'm offended you'd think I'd even consider it."

Skywarp grinned, preferring to lean against the bar top than sit. "Good. As if you'd be able to handle them all, anyway. Frames as gorgeous as those deserve _expert_ handling."

"Oh, how quaint." Despite his boiling anger Starscream couldn't help but let his habitual smirk show through as he mused. "Mr Wannabe Playboy wants to share his 'invaluable' femme experiences with us. I suppose you've already shown some of them your cockpit, have you?"

"Ha, you have no idea!" Skywarp bragged, blissfully unaware that he was being mocked so easily. "I'll tell you... the ones with the dark color schemes, they're the most demanding ones. You gotta be _really_ creative with compliments to win them over. The bright ones are easier to get. I think the paint blinds their processors or something, nine out of ten times they're silly bimbos, but _damn_ , they are sexy..." Skywarp's lazy grin was quickly slapped off his faceplate by a light blue servo striking his cheek. A pair of blazing optics glared up at him when he turned his helm back around, rubbing at his burning face.

"I knew I recognised that voice," the femme before him snarled, curling her slapping hand into a fist while the other gripped her hip joint. She seemed blind to Starscream and Thundercracker's presences, as well as the two Seekers' stifled snickering. "You're such an a disgusting pig, Warp! Not only did you exploit me, you go ahead and say such disgusting things! You really are a revolting _freak_!" She was gone before Skywarp had time to blink in shock, carving a path of rage through the crowd and seemingly intent on finding someone to punch.

Starscream liked to think of himself as a professional in all matters, but even he couldn't stop himself from cackling along with Thundercracker at his brother's expression.

"A past recipient of your 'expert handling', Warp?"

The purple mech slumped down in an empty seat and collapsed onto the bar top, sighing into it. "...you could say that."

Starscream smirked into his glass when his order finally arrived, always grateful to see Skywarp getting well-deserved karma for once. The mech's gloominess didn't last for very long though, as when Thundercracker slid a drink over to him he lifted his helm to down half of the whole thing in one go.

"But y'know what? I'm not letting one blip ruin my whole night." Skywarp wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, optics burning with a new brand of determination (or encroaching inebreation, it was always hard to tell with him). "I came to have a good time, and not even Primus is gonna stop me. I'm talking about me going out with friends to a bar, meeting a mutual friend or acquaintance, and flirting so we both end up sneaking off and doing the deed. At least, that's usually what happens when me or anyone else I know has casual interface." Just before he made to sip the rest of his drink, Skywarp slid his optics over to Thundercracker in a sleazy gaze. "That is, unless it's _you_ we're talking about, Cracker... how's Flamewar doing, by the way?"

The blue mech somehow managed to stop himself choking on his high-grade as he spluttered, but Starscream had some more trouble stopping laughter snorting inelegantly through his vents. "I-I wouldn't know. She hasn't exactly been welcome around Cybertron since... well, the jailbreak." Thundercracker didn't much like to think about it, considering some of his wires were still fried from the experience and that it almost had him end up as energon stains on the business end of Megatron's fusion cannon.

"Hm." Skywarp shrugged and made a show of looking around the bar. "Maybe she's hanging around here somewhere- it'd be rather _shocking_ if we see her again, wouldn't it?"

"Shut up."

"Oh, leave him alone, Warp," Starscream said, polishing his first drink off. "All the things you've done could fill a whole archive- and that's not even including the drunken ones."

"That's rich coming from you, _Screamer_." Skywarp said the dreaded nickname with a special emphasis that sent Starscream's audios and denta grinding in unison. "I'm actually surprised you go into bars anymore after what happened during the war..."

"Dare I ask you to refresh my memory?" the red Seeker asked cautiously, idly swirling the dregs of his glass.

Skywarp and Thundercracker shared a look before their glossa moved simultaneously. "Valhalla Ladies."

"Point taken." Starscream shuddered so hard he almost spilled high-grade down his chest armour as he raised his glass, cautiously flitting his narrowed optics over the bar crowd- anything that wasn't Skywarp's insipid grin would be a relief.

At least, that was what he thought before he spied familiar crimson armour at a table near the front of the dimmed stage.

 _'As if this night wasn't bad enough...'_

Skywarp giggled at both Starscream and Thundercracker's proto-deep scowls as he sipped at his glass, raising an eyeridge at how Starscream's quickly curdled further into a grimace. Thundercracker's, on the other servo, lightened into something more curious as he nodded towards a table amongst the sea of patrons.

"So, that's the famous Cityspeaker and her two friends?" Starscream didn't need to look to where Thundercracker's helm indicated. Windblade was by far the most famous of her breed, and ever since she arrived the courts had been abuzz with gossip that Starscream was inclined to ignore- mostly speculation about what secret words she shared with Metroplex and more than a few mechs wondering if she had someone waiting for her back on Caminus _._ Starscream had only seen brief glimpses of the other femmes accompanying her tonight, but he was convinced that both were to be treated with a healthy dose of wariness.

"Hey, Screamer..." Starscream hissed as Skywarp's fist gently collided with his shoulder, catching a wink from him when he turned to berate him. "So that's the chick that been giving you so many sleepless nights?"

It was just as well the Seeker didn't have anything in his mouth else he would have spluttered it all over his brother. "S-Stop calling me Screamer! And what the Pit is that supposed to mean?!"

"Just leave him, Warp," Thundercracker put in before Skywarp could dig himself an even deeper path to the Pit. The purple mech gave TC a confused look, suspiciously like the one Buster usually gave him.

"What? It's an honest question!"

Thundercracker rolled his optics at his cluelessness. "Give him a little break, okay? From what I heard their... 'relationship' is complicated."

"What are you talking about, Cracker?" Starscream swore he could feel his denta flaking from how his jaw was grinding them together, trying to contain himself and keep his null ray hidden. "What kind of 'relationship'are you on about? Don't tell me you believe all the Vosian gossip!"

Thundercracker seemed surprised at the intensity of his brother's anger and shrank away, lowering his wings. Skywarp seemed to interpret Starscream's growl as something else though, as he patted his shoulder in place of a punch this time.

"Come on, admit it! You think she's hot!"

Starscream aired an angry snort through his olfactories, but otherwise chose to ignore Skywarp. Thundercracker had used his initiative and ordered snacks to go with their next round of drinks, pushing a bowl of Starscream's favourite Mercrackers (solid mercury flakes coated in energon) towards him. The red mech's glower seemed to dissolve as he shovelled the treats into his mouth, and Thundercracker actually thought Starscream would manage to enjoy himself tonight until Skywarp sent his glossa flying again.

"Well, have you?"

Starscream paused mid-snack shovel, chewing on the flakes already in his mouth. "What?"

Skywarp's smirk turned the sweetness in Starscream's taste nodes to dust in an instant. "Have you _slept_ with her yet?"

"Oh, for the love of Primus-"

" _Leave it,_ the both of you," Thundercracker said sternly, turning an especially hard glare to Skywarp. Both Seekers huffed, but with a roll of red optics and another handful of Mercrackers they eventually relented.

" _Moving on_..." Skywarp drawled, fiddling idly with his digits and looking over to Thundercracker. "Like Starscream said, you've still got some time to try and one-up me on the 'public humiliation' front, TC. How many drinks will it take this time to make you propose to everyone with a valve around here?"

Thunder took on a sinister look, taking a slow drink and placing a servo on his hip. "Well, Warp, I guess some bots try to get with every femme in the bar, and some just try to interface with an _earth jet_. I ask myself, which one is more ridiculous?"

"YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T BRING THAT UP!"

Someone saved Starscream from banging both their helms together to shut them up by hissing a brisk _Shhh!_ at them from across the bar, and it was only then that the tricolour mech noticed the unnatural silence that had settled over the evening crowd (even the Wreckers in the corner had muted their usual jeers for once). All their attention was on the stage set up at the front of the building, suddenly aglow with light, and the two femmes standing atop it. Even if he hadn't seen her earlier he would have instantly recognised the cowering crimson one, even with her faceplate kept so firmly hidden from view- no doubt the silver metal was going liquid mercury with the force of her embarrassment. And he knew why, as soon as he saw the banner officially designating this poor evening as 'karaoke night'.

 _'Never thought you were one for entertaining, Windblade...'_


	3. Chapter 3

Starscream wasn't quite sure what he was expecting from a vocaliser that evolved on the other side of the galaxy, but in a way it helped him appreciate what came out of it even more. For just a few klicks that passed far too quickly, he forgot who Windblade was. He forgot where she came from, that there was anyone else in the bar or even the whole galaxy.

And her voice certainly wasn't wasted on his brothers.

"Primus, she sings like a goddess," Thundercracker whispered in awe, cradling his helm in his hands. "Like a little red siskin..."

"A what?" Starscream broke away from gazing at Windblade to raise a puzzled eyeridge at the blue mech.

"It's a bird on the earth," Thundercracker explained, not suspending his own glazed-optic stare at her. "I usually heard it singing in the morning, just after waking from recharge..." The music faded and applause replaced its noise, mostly from Skywarp drunkenly cheering and a blue femme pumping her fist in the air. Even Starscream found that his hands were lightly pressing together, so he promptly pulled them apart before someone saw him.

"She's a little too _delicate_ for my tastes, though. But that purple femme, she has an interesting alt-mode, don´t you think?" Thundercracker asked, more swirling his drink than sipping from it. Some liquid sloshed out of his glass when he gestured to the femme as she bowed and stepped down from the stage (with Windblade keeping herself close behind her, Starscream noticed). "I think she likes me, she winked at me while she was singing."

Skywarp laughed and ended up snorting out some of his drink before it could reach past his throat."Either the high-grade is getting to your optics or you're blind as a luna rabbit, Cracker, cause she was clearly winking at _me."_

"She was _not!"_

Knowing they'd both be bickering for the rest of the evening, Starscream turned his back to them and cradled his glass, returning his attention to Windblade. He wasn't surprised to see her guzzling energon like a starved turbofox after a performance like that. If he'd tried to hold her notes for even a few nanoklicks he was sure not even Flatline could have fixed his vocaliser. Maybe it was something she did often on Caminus, filling the starry nights with her evangelical voice.

Maybe _he_ was downing his high-grade too fast to be thinking something as pathetic as that.

The purple femme his brothers were so invested in suddenly looked up and glanced over at him, but her gaze went past him to where Thundercracker and Skywarp were verbally at each others throats. Starscream saw TC pause in his ranting and raise his empty glass at her with a smile. She returned his smile with a distant giggle and threw another infamous wink at him while her blue companion scowled across at her. Windblade seemed cheerful as well, Starscream noticed, but there was more amusement than friendliness in the creases of her mouth.

Thundercracker himself spent a few nanoklicks admiring the other femmes gathered around his violet curiosity, including Windblade. Starscream viciously squashed the tinge of jealousy that arose from seeing that. "I must confess, those other two have a certain... charm to them."

Skywarp squinted at the femme table, with particular attention to the blue one and the very un-Seeker like wheels on her frame. "TC, I think you've drank too much already. I always thought you couldn't stand most grounders?" Skywarp himself was less hostile than most Seekers towards them- as long as there was a valve somewhere, he didn't care what a femme turned into.

Starscream as well studied the two ladies with only passing interest for Windblade and a grimace when he spotted her cerulean bodyguard. "Yes, especially with Chromia, that blue one-"

Skywarp jumped to interrupt him with a giddy grin. "Ooh, what about her? Did I misjudge the object of old Screamy's affections?"

Somehow, that notion was even more annoying than being constantly hounded about Windblade. "Do I look like I have a death wish to you, Warp? I'm not stupid!" Starscream asserted, grumbling into his refilled glass. "I know she's... 'off-limits'."

Thundercracker turned back to his friends and raised an eyeridge at them. "Would someone bother to enlighten me on what exactly makes this blue femme so special?"

Skywarp was the only one not too sulky to explain. "There are rumors that a certain red Autobot, with extremely aggressive tendencies, has his optic on her. So, digits off her..."

Thundercracker scoffed. "As if I have any time to wait around for grounders to catch up with me." He leaned across the bar to snatch his drink up, missing the sly smirk spreading over Skywarp's faceplate.

"Yeah, not when you've got your own little _flame_ to dote on-"

"Skywarp, you are perilously close to having a glass shard stabbed through your vocaliser if you don't keep it shut." Rather than silencing the purple mech, Thundercracker's remark only served to spurr him on. Skywarp shook his helm in disapproval and waggled a digit.

"Tsk, tsk, violent thoughts towards your fellow trine member. Now what would our therapist think of that?"

"If he was here, I'm sure he'd sympathise with me," Thundercracker growled into his glass as Skywarp took a long gulp from his own after his tipsy giggles subsided. Starscream only rolled his optics, grateful that the spotlight wasn't on him for once while Cracker droned on.

"Therapists hardly ever know what they're talking about anyway. You know half the time the ones on Earth end up doing more _bad_ than good for their clients?"

Skywarp had since polished his drink off and draped a servo over TC's shoulder, waving his empty glass around. "Well, TC, I may not know a lot about psycho-... about cerebra..." His slight slurring seemed to stop him from finding the right word, and he eventually gave up on searching for it. "But I do know _one_ thing for sure."

Thundercracker carefully raised an eyeridge. "And what would that be?"

"That you've been watching too many crappy dramas, and that you _definitely_ spent way too long on that organic dirt ball."

Rather than choosing to share Skywarp's sloping smirk and stuttering laughter, Thundercracker returned it with a deep scowl. "Oh, really?" He roughly shrugged the purple mech's servo off. "And who do I have to thank for that? Who shot me in the face and then left me to _rot_ there?"

Either Sky was too tipsy to realise the depth of his friend's anger, or he just didn't care about it. "Ah, come on, TC, we've already spoken like, a thousand times about this!"

"362 times," Thundercracker quickly corrected him, met with a dimissive wave from Skywarp that almost collided with his faceplate.

"Oh, you're as resentful as a minibot. I've already apologized a million times about that!"

"5232 times!"

"Will you both stop!" Starscream pushed himself between the two mechs, anger simmering in his optics. "For Primus' sake, you act like it's the first time either of us stabbed the other in the back." And it wasn't like it was the last time, either.

Thundercracker snorted but didn't try to advance on Skywarp again. "Well, I don't know about stabbing, but _you_ certainly know enough about _shooting_ bots in the back." His scowl deepened with bitter memories of Starscream's betrayal. The plasma round tearing through his spinal column didn't hurt nearly as much as the fact that his comrade, his trinemate and brother, was the one who fired it. All because he was too stubborn and egotistic to let him live outside the Decepticon's shadow.

Now it was the tricolour traitor's turn to defend himself. "Oh please, if I _really_ wanted to kill you back then, you'd be dead by now. And for your databanks, _everybody_ had a unpleasant time back then, but you don't hear us wringing our vocalisers raw complaining about it!"

Skywarp had seemed content to be in the background for once, but now he tried to wedge himself between his friends. "As much as I love our little disagreements, we _really_ should stick to our treatment plan of _not_ crucifying each other every other klick. Y'know, the one Rang told us to stick to if we wanted to go around without being forcibly handcuffed to each other?"

Starscream snorted a shadow of a laugh, turning back to the bar. "In that case, I'd just cut my servo off."

"His name was Rung, you idiot, " TC growled, roughly pulling the leftover Mercrackers towards him.


	4. Chapter 4

"Nautica, you're swooning again."

"Huh?" The purple femme almost banged her helm on the table as she came to her senses, shuttering her glazed-over optics before looking innocently at Chromia and her own lidded optics.

The blue femme wasn't buying it. "You've been staring like a lovesick turbofox at those Seekers at the bar for the past five klicks."

Nautica immediately straightened up, almost knocking her drink glass off the table in the progress. "Was not! I was... admiring their weaponry."

Chromia snorted in disbelief while finishing off her current glass. "Oh yeah, you were definitely focusing on their _hardware_. Just like you were 'just examining' that sniper's optic reticule when you kept staring at him, or how ou were 'studying' his codpiece in the supply closet last vorn." She flicked one of Nautica's audio antennae before she could rebuke. "Pull yourself together, for Primus sake, I don't want anyone thinking we're out to get fragged."

"That sniper's name was Perceptor and we went on at least two dates before that happened! And FYI, he's also a scientist. He showed me his weapon collection and everything." The purple femme pouted fiercely, but she knew better than to get further into a fight she wouldn't win. Instead she leaned across and tapped Windblade's servo, bringing the red femme out of her own trance. "Hey, Windy, there's a mech over there I think you'd like."

Even if she wasn't still getting her processor back in order, Windblade would have never known who Nautica was talking about in the surging mass of bots crowded around the bar. She doubted there would be any mech on the planet that would look twice at her anyway when Nautica was there to pull their attention in like a black hole- but with Chromia's sparkday surliness almost spoiling the atmosphere, Windblade decided she'd do well to humour her. She feigned an interest by squinting hard at the gaggle of bots. "Which one?"

Nautica graciously narrowed her search down with a gesture towards the left side of the bar nearest to the stage. "It's the tricolour one, the Seeker with the other purple and blue ones."

Windblade couldn't place the other two, but their red companion was not someone she was expecting (or hoping) to see tonight. She looked away quickly enough to almost pop her optics from their sockets, burying her faceplate in her empty glass to hide the rush of hot energon in her cheekplates. "I... don't think so, Nautica," she mumbled, pretending to knock back the dregs of her drink.

Nautica raised an eyeridge with another curious glance at the mech her friend so readily rejected. "Why not?"

"Just trust me. It's not meant to be." Windblade wasn't about to delve into the less savoury parts of her Cityspeaker work that had brought her under such fierce scrutiny from Starscream in the first place, let alone admit to having contact with him before.

For once, Nautica seemed to accept the curt answer. "If you say so..." She looked over at the Seekers one last time, actually catching the attention of the blue one half-way through a rant at his purple friend. He seemed to forget all about the other mech as he raised his glass in her direction with a cordial smile she couldn't help but replicate with a wink. Then his wings started wiggling at her, and she couldn't stop a giggle bubbling out of her vocaliser.

Chromia looked at Nautica as if she just spat up a scraplet. "Primus, you're embarrassing."

Windblade meanwhile allowed some relief to settle the tension wrought in her cables- if they were focused on Nautica and her never ending flirtations then they wouldn't ask her any more about 'the tricolour mech'.

That hope lasted for as long as it took Chromia to drain her current glass and glance around the bar. "So where is this tricolour creep anyway?"

"Chromia! Be nice!" Nautica protested, snapping her helm away from her suitors.

Her blue friend scoffed and crossed her servos over her chest. "Why should I be?"

"Well, he's got red on his paintjob- that's your favourite colour when it comes to mechs..."

Even if red _was_ Chromia's favourite colour, she wasn't a fan of her cheekplates going such a deep shade of it at Nautica's implication. "Shut up."

Nautica smiled smugly at shutting the boisterous femme down so easily. She turned back to Windblade. "Well, at least you've not got any competition for him."

Windblade spluttered on her high-grade as indignation flooded in. "I am _not_ interested in him!"

Nautica seemed about to call her out on the frenzy of her denial, but a flicker at the corner of her optic stopped her. She turned to face it before getting that unsettling smug look again. "Well, you can tell that to one of his friends." She nodded to where the purple Seeker was approaching from the bar.

Chromia tipped her helm back and rubbed at it as she groaned. "Ah, scrap, the day just keeps getting worse. Permission to frag off?"

"Permission _denied_ ," Nautica said pointedly before putting on her best 'friendly face' for their visitor.

The mech kept his twitching wings aloft in typical smug Seeker fashion even as he leaned down to be optic level with the femmes. If Windblade didn't already know he was associates with Starscream, she could have guessed it from how similarly unsettling their grins were. "Evening, ladies. Name's Skywarp. Hope I'm not interrupting anything, I just couldn't help noticing how _stunning_ you all looked on stage."

Nautica grinned a greeting and Windblade managed a polite smile, but Chromia was less than impressed. "Was that before or after you got backhanded by a femme half your size?"

Neither Windblade or Nautica knew what she was referring to, but Skywarp obviously did from the sudden burst of energon making his faceplate warm and his wings dipping lower. There was a hiss of static from his vocaliser as he tried to think of a rebuke, but it was replaced by a sigh of relief when he spotted the blue Seeker gesturing over to him. "Er...excuse me a klick, dears, my trine brother can hardly work his T-cog without my help." He managed one last wink before pelting back over to the bar.

Chromia rolled her optics and sipped at her refilled glass. "Is it possible to get second-hand embarrassment after knowing a bot for less than five nanoklicks?"

Nautica groaned and looked wistfully after Skywarp as he retreated. "I don't know why I bother taking you anywhere nice, Mia."

"Hey, I'm the sparkday bot here, I deserve to have some fun!" she protested.

"Well _I_ deserve the chance to meet some nice mechs without you scaring them all off!" Nautica scowled. Caught in the middle, Windblade felt like she should have stepped in to defend the poor Seeker, but she was just glad to have the spotlight off herself for once (as well as for the fact Starscream had seemed to disappear).

"Trust me, Nautica, there'll always be more when I'm not here." Chromia paused her second sip when she looked back over to where the Seekers were stationed. Now two were approaching with Skywarp more or less dragging his blue friend along behind him.

"Get ready for round 2," she muttered as they pulled up before the table again.

"Might I introduce my trine member, Thundercracker!" Skywarp announced with a flourish that his friend clearly didn't appreciate from how he cringed, only giving a brief nod before averting his optics. Either he was shy or could sense Chromia's hostility. Or, like everyone else, Skywarp just annoyed him.

Nautica must have thought he looked cute cowering away from them from how she beamed up at him. "Nice to meet you both," she chirped, holding her chin up with her servos. "I'm Nautica, and this is Chromia and Windblade." She gestured to each one in turn, ignoring Chromia's sneer. Windblade at least was open to being friendly, giving a polite wave to the mechs.

Thundercracker seemed to open up from the warmth on the two femme's faceplates. His wings and backstrut straightened out as he looked curiously at Windblade. "I heard you had a gift for talking to Metrotitans, but I didn't know your vocaliser had _other_ hidden talents."

Windblade felt herself blushing as the self-consciousness from the stage rushed back to her all at once. "Well, singing is... quite popular on Caminus," she mumbled into her servo as it covered her mouth. These two were friends with _Starscream_ of all mechs?

Thundercracker gave a rare sincere smile at her. "Well, it certainly wasn't wasted on us," he said. "If there's more of it on your home planet then we might consider visiting ourselves. Our _other_ brother especially enjoyed it..."

Windblade's faceplate went warm enough to sting her digits, forcing them away from shielding her embarrassment. Primus, she'd never be able to live the evening down now- she could already picture how Starscream would mock her for it the next day.

" _Tricolour creep,_ " Chromia hissed next to her, digging an elbow into her side. Despite her own reservations Windblade shot a warning look at her before turning back to Skywarp.

"You mean Starscream? I..." She tapped her chin as she tried to think of something that wouldn't offend his trine. "...work quite closely with him. I never knew he liked music."

"Oh, you'd be surprised how much he likes to keep hidden," Skywarp said, momentarily brought out of a muted conversation with Nautica- whatever he'd said to her, it had the purple femme blushing just as much as Windblade. "Like how he can spend thousands on himself yet can't even remember a gift on his own trinemate's sparkday, or-"

Thundercracker frowned and prodded Skywarp in the side with his elbow. "Don't you start that again."

Skywarp just shot a scowl a him before turning back to the femmes. "Well, I suppose Starscream isn't so bad. You just need to know how to handle him properly, like an ill-tempered turbofox. You know how it is, if he's tense he ends up drinking. And after he has enough drinks, well, he gets quite..." He waved his servos around, as if searching for the right term. "'Loosey-goosey'. Downright agreeable. Tell him there's a shot glass on the other side of a cliff and he'll fall right off it before he remembers how to work his T-cog."

"Warp!" If Thundercracker's hiss wasn't enough to interrupt him, the hard thud on Skywarp's shoulder did the job. He pulled him a short distance away from the table, ducking into a semi-private exchange that Windblade only caught from being at the edge of the booth. "I know it's soaked in Primus-knows what right now, but guard your glossa! That's not just our trine leader you're talking about to _strangers,_ he's the _leader of the damn planet._ Not to mention he's our friend, practically family to us-"

"And your point is?" Skywarp asked with a bored tone.

"That like with family, some things are best kept secret. Like how Starscream gets when he's had too much to drink..."

She could practically see Skywarp rolling his optics. "Oh, calm down, Cracker, it's all just harmless chat! Besides, just about everyone in the bar has seen Screamer overcharged. If anything he'll thank us for breaking the ice with the girls. Not to mention getting him in with his _little red siskin-"_

Before Windblade could eavesdrop further, Chromia abruptly rose from her seat and edged past her. "Well, I'll be at the bar if you need me." From her voice and the look on her face she seemed to have cheered up considerably. That was quite suspicious, to say the least.

Nautica was watching Thundercracker again, deaf to what he was saying to Skywarp, but she paused her staring to glance curiously at Chromia. "What'cha doing?"

"Just seeing if the bar serves any Camien drinks," she answered innocently.

Nautica tented her digits under her chin. "Ooh, what kind?"

"Supernovae."

Windblade and Nautica both shared a look. "That's quite a strong one, don't you think?" the red femme asked with a hint of worry.

Chromia dismissed Windblade's words with a wave of her servo. "Oh, don't worry, they're grown mechs. I'm sure they can handle it." She was off before the others could ask any more. Windblade had an unsettled, roiling feeling in her spark that only multiplied when she saw Starscream emerging from the oil change rooms.


	5. Chapter 5

Thundercracker was almost through the bowl of treats when Skywarp decided to break the stubborn silence.

"Permission to be bold?" he asked with a mischievous grin at Starscream that made the other mech grit his denta.

"You're going to be whether I give permission or not," Starscream grumbled.

Skywarp pouted at the bitterness of his tone. "It's called 'being polite', _Screamer_ ," he said matter-of-factly, using his high-grade glass to point disapprovingly at him. "Anyway, anyone here thought about fragging a non-Cybertro' before?"

Thundercracker almost bit down on his digit as he placed a Mercracker in his mouth, and Starscream shot up fast enough to give himself whiplash.

" _What?!_ "

Skywarp shrugged at their outbursts. "Y'know... ever imagined what it might be like?"

They both gave a disgusted look at him as he waited expectedly for an answer.

Starscream was the first to show his indignation in a splutter. "Absolutely not! Believe it or not, Skywarp, some of us have _standards._ "

Thundercracker shared his leader's sentiments with a shake of his helm. "Primus, Warp, is there anything you _won't_ try and frag?"

Skywarp gave the blue Seeker an offended, almost hurt look. "Come on, TC, not even you? I thought you had that human companion back on Earth; Marissa something, was it?"

Thundercracker paused in tipping the rest of the bowl back into his mouth, giving his brother a glare of warning from his optics. "I don't see what she has to do with anything."

Skywarp raised an eyeridge doubtfully. "Seriously? I mean, just my opinion, but she's one hot device for an organic-"

"WARP!" Thundercracker bellowed, thumping a fist down in front of the purple mech. it seemed to throw him off, but a klick later Skywarp just shrugged innocently.

"Well, it's true."

Thundercracker just rolled his optics and threw himself back in his seat. "I don't see where you're going with this, Skywarp."  
"I do..." Starscream groaned regretfully, only suspending his grimace to sip from his glass.

Skywarp brought the mischievous, slightly unsettling grin back. "Oh, what, you're telling me neither of you are at least... curious about it?"

"I'd rather shove my spike in an incinerator!" Starscream claimed, drawing more than a few disapproving stares from the other patrons.

Even with the finality in his tone, Skywarp would not be shut up so easily. "Well, let's just be hypothetical about it. Let's say... there was a human _our_ _size_."

"Sounds like a nightmare I once had," Starscream muttered banefully. Thundercracker, meanwhile, seemed to have lost some of his aversion. To Skywarp, he suddenly looked quite intrigued by the thought.

 _'I always knew you were a secret squishie lover, Cracker...'_ Skywarp smirked knowingly to himself before turning his persuasion on Starscream. "Just think about it, Screamer. Sure, they're fleshy, but imagine how warm and smooth their skin must be, almost like our protoform. And their cranial filaments are soft, with a strange but enchanting scent... imagine all that, but scaled up to our size."

Skywarp took on a dreamy look that even Thundercracker seemed to share. Starscream averted his optics for a few klicks, tilting his glass idly, before making a distasteful noise. "Pervert."

Skywarp turned away to grin knowingly to himself, logging away the reluctant curiosity he saw flashing across Starscream's optics for blackmail purposes later. When he faced the mech again he just shrugged, as if Starscream's verdict made no difference to him. "Suit yourself. That closed processor isn't going to get you anywhere."

Starscream scoffed over the rim of his glass. "As long as it keeps me far away from humans, that's good enough for me." It was only when he took a sip that he realised it was empty. With a loud sigh he banged the glass down on the counter, drawing even more stares than before.

"Dammit; I need a drink, an oil change, and a nap. Not necessarily in that order." He pushed off from the bar before either of his trine could stop him with another barrage of unwelcome mental images.

Skywarp watched him leave, waiting until he was lost in the crowd before turning to Thundercracker. "Well, now that the family killjoy is gone, I think it's time for us to make some new friends."

Thundercracker looked suspiciously at him as he rose from his seat. "What are you up to now?"

Skywarp only winked before turning away, heading right for the table where Starscream's secret admiration and their own purple paramour for the evening sat. From the confidence in his stride and lofty wings Thundercracker was almost convinced Skywarp would make some progress with them. He was reminded that where Skywarp was concerned there was no such thing as progress when the purple Seeker returned a klick later, defeated and dejected.

Thundercracker didn't try stopping his smug smirk from surfacing. "Two rejections in one night, Warp? Must be a new record."

"In my defence, none of them slapped me this time," Skywarp said with a glare, crossing his servos over. "Why don't _you_ be useful and come offer some help?"

Thundercracker barked a laugh into his glass. "I'm fine here, thanks."

Now Skywarp had the smug look as he nudged his companion. "Come on, Thundercracker, don't tell me you're _shy_. How old are you?"

"You know perfectly well how old I am," Cracker scowled. "What's that supposed to mean, anyway?"

Skywarp just snorted in answer. "Just that sometimes I really wonder how you won that pink Autobot darling over. What was her name again?"

Thundercracker paused before taking a long swig of his glass. "Arcee." Both the high-grade and memory of her gave his voice a regretful tone. "She was quite different back then..." He toyed with his glass for a few moments before pushing it aside, rising from his seat and brushing his armour down. "Alright, I'll be your _wing_ mech. Primus knows you'll need one with those three."

Skywarp decided to ignore the veiled insult as he pulled Thundercracker over to the femme's table.

 **xx**

Starscream emerged from the oil room with gratefully empty tanks and a scowl as he noticed his trine's absence from the bar. Instead Chromia of all bots had taken their place, waiting to place an order with the bartender. He perked his wings up and marched over to her, but she spoke before he could give his indignation a voice.

"If you're wondering where your friends are, they're busy making fools of themselves over there so feel free to join them." She gestured somewhere behind her with her helm. Following her direction, he saw Thundercracker and Skywarp competing with each other over the purple femme while Windblade toyed with her empty glass, expression indecipherable. Seeing him looking at her, Chromia mentioned, "I think Windblade would appreciate your company as well, Primus knows why."

Starscream's vocaliser stopped short, unsure of what to do with that remark. Either the sarcasm was subtle or non-existant, and he settled on ignoring the statement altogether to save him the job of choosing. "Any reason why you're not with them now?" he asked, flexing his digits around what he wished was a fresh glass instead of empty air.

"I was just going to get us all some special Camien drinks," Chromia answered a little too innocently for his liking. "A little sparkday gift. I'll buy you one as well, if you think you can handle it."

The challenge was clear in her tone and smirk, tugging Starscream's frown further downwards. "If I can handle Camien snark, then your drinks will hardly be a challenge," he declared. Chromia showed a glint of denta as her smirk widened, and Starscream was starting to feel the first tinges of regret when the bartender arrived.

"Two glasses of Supernovae, three Nebuloes and one Hypernovae, please," Chromia ordered, glancing over at Starscream as he cocked an eyeridge. She was right about them being Camien drinks, he hadn't heard of any of them before. Soon the counter was filled with neon-bright glasses studded with tiny umbrellas and shiny sticks. Chromia slid over the most obnoxious looking one; a concoction of orange and purple swirls and sprinkles of silver, stabbed through with something that looked like a miniature rocket. He eyed it suspiciously, almost scared to pick it up but eventually getting over himself when he saw Chromia watching him.

"Bottoms up, _Screamer,"_ she prompted. Starscream completely forgot the drinks in the midst of a sudden fury that flared up.

"My name is _NOT_ Screamer, you insolent-" His snarl was cut short by an amused smirk from Chromia as she gestured all around them. So many other patrons... his reputation was already rocky enough without causing a scene in the middle of a crowded bar. He swallowed his pride before the drink, knocking back whatever was in the glass and hoping it didn't poison him. At least he knew Chromia hadn't secretly added anything to it, but that just made him anxious about what kind of things Chromia's lot soaked their processors in on a daily basis.

His glossa flicked as a sweet taste pooled over it, with some sour tones prickling at his edge taste nodes. It was actually quite pleasant, a nice change from the staler vintage of regular high-grade he was so used to.

"That was the Hypernovae, by the way." Chromia seemed far away as she spoke, gathering up her own glasses and leaving him at the bar. The whole club seemed to fade away, some noises dampened under the weight of tipsiness and others amplified. His own digits seemed unfamiliar to him as he stretched them out over the bar top, tapping them almost curiously. And the sweet taste of the Hypernovae still lay thick around his mouth.

He decided he wanted another one.


	6. Chapter 6

Starscream didn't notice his trine eventually drifting back to their bar spot until he could feel their EM fields crackling against his own. A thump on his back from Skywarp announced their return more directly.

"Ooh, so Screamer _does_ have a secret admirer!" The purple mech pointed at the empty glass on Starscream's left, noting the marker on it that put it on a different bot's tab.

Starscream didn't bother looking at where Warp was indicating, snorting through a gulp of high-grade. "Well, they're sure as the Pit not for _you_ ," he asserted, draining the rest of his third glass.His optics lazily rolled around by themselves, taking in Thundercracker's concerned expression and slight confusion starting to bloom on Skywarp's faceplate. Thr purple mech quickly shook himself of it, eyeing the hoard of high-grade Starscream had on his right side.

"Those are Camien drinks, aren't they?" Starscream didn't really care how even a bot as slow as Warp knew that. What he _did_ care about was how close his digits were getting to his glasses. "Mind if I take a sip?"

Starscream scowled fiercely and smacked Skywarp's servo away, holding his drinks close to his chest. "Yes, I _do_ mind. Get your own."

Skywarp seemed offended from how he rubbed at his hand, but he hid it with a raised eyeridge as his optics rolled. "Primus, the only thing bigger than your thirst is your ego. Sometimes I feel like the older you get, the worse you become."

Starscream managed a laugh through a hiccup, and the only thing stopping Skywarp from thumping the air bubbles out of him was Thundercracker turning him away.

"Just leave him, Warp," the blue mech sighed with a glance at their leader. "He's been drinking out of an Alchemist Prime brew, it seems."

Starscream's scowl gained a whole new level of contempt at the reference- the scientist Prime was said to be the first to refine energon and make high-grade out of it, supposedly to help with the development of the first Cybertronians. Of course, it had an altogether different application on modern cycle Cybertron, and he was all but universally known as the patron mech of drunks.

Even with their backs turned, Starscream still sneered at the two mechs before taking tiny sips from one of his glasses. They went on to pretending that he wasn't even there.

"That Nautica... she's quite intriguing, don't you think?" Thundercracker mused.

"Intriguing or hot?" Skywarp turned just enough for Starscream to see his salacious grin. They both laughed loud enough to give him a whole new processor ache.

"She could make a lonely mech happy," Thundercracker said with a sigh. With another glass polished off, Starscream found that two klicks of not being paid any attention was far too long for him.

"Believe me, TC," he said with a tipsy chuckle. "As lonely as you are, she's way out of your league!"

That managed to get his grumpy attention very effectively. "Oh really?" TC asked with a raised eyeridge; surprised that Starscream almost managed to not slur his words.

Starscream adopted a lazier reindition of Skywarp's grin. "Yeah, for one thing her processor doesn't come from a mark-I battle drone." A digit went to his mouth as if trying to contain the smug giggles leaking through it. "She treats you like chewing gum; eats you up and then spits you right back out again!"

Thundercracker's digits tightened on the edge of the bar top, and he was reluctant to ungrit his denta. "That's a rich claim from _you_ , Starscream," he scoffed when the fury finally passed. "I'd rather be dumb than arrogant any day."

"And you've proven I'd rather be drunk than desperate," Starscream quipped, indulging himself with another swig from one of his drinks.

Skywarp, meanwhile, had finally stopped ogling the femmes now dancing on stage and took notice of the hostility in the air. "Oh, scrap, not again..." He put himself between Thundercracker and Starscream, separating them as much as possible. "Guys, guys, did you forget what we're here to do? Relax, have some fun, pick up some femmes... maybe have a nice little bar brawl." He shrugged as he reeled off the list of happy memories. "Just like old times."

Starscream wasn't nearly so nostalgic. "Were those 'old times' before or after TC ditched me for his little anti-Con club and you got the bright idea to take 'Con law into your own servos?" He snorted into his drink while Thundercracker threw a glare over.

"Don't act like you made any effort to try and get us back," the blue mech hissed, turning his back on both Starscream and Skywarp.

"Come on TC, we've talked about this a thousand times," Starscream groaned, as if he wasn't the one who started the whole mess.

"And yet every new version of the story is different from the last and ends up making you look less pathetic than you actually are," Thundercracker observed unsympathetically.

Starscream trying to stand on wobbling legs might have made him laugh if it wasn't for the rage building in the red Seeker's optics as he advanced on his brother. "Are you willing to back that accusation up?" he snarled.

Thundercracker replied in kind. "If that means finally slapping that Primus-damn smirk off your face-"

Again, Skywarp was the only thing stopping the two Seekers from mauling each other. "For frag's sake, guys!" he yelled, literally pushing them apart with hands on their chestplates. "What's the matter with you?!"

"Oh, _nothing,_ " Starscream said in mock defense, shoving Skywarp's hand away and still staring Thundercracker down. _"_ Just putting up with the usual routine of betrayal and excuses from Vos' most useless resident-"

Skywarp raised his hand again to point a digit at Starscream, stopping him mid-sentence. "Drop it, scraphead," he warned, only lowering his servos when Starscream and TC had stopped trying to stare each other to death. "That's the second time we've forgotten Rang's orders," he muttered.

"Rung," Starscream corrected, back in his barstool and stewing in his sourness. "The name of that little idiot is Rung."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Skywarp said, exasperated. "At least _I_ can remember what he told us not to do."

"Which one are you talking about?" Thundercracker scoffed, cradling his leftover glass from the femme's table. He was half tempted to abandon the brewing disaster of his trine and find some semblance of sanctuary back over there. "The one where we won't insult each other or the one where we won't try and blast each other full of bullet holes?"

Starscream's bark of laughter brimmed with sarcasm. _"_ Or maybe it was the one where we'd actually act like a trine again?"

"It was the one where we agreed to be caring and considerate brothers again," Warp stated sternly, going on to shake his helm. "Actually, no, now that you mention it, I meant everything else as well!"

There was an unusual strain to the force of his air vents, prompting a concerned look from Thundercracker and a pat on Skywarp's back.

Starscream, meanwhile, was physically incapable of keeping his mouth shut for more than a klick. "Well, well, Warp is the responsible one here. The universe must be ending again for the fifth damn time this orn." He pulled another glass close to him and downed the contents with closed optics, not seeing Skywarp's own narrowing before his angry approach.

"For your information..." he growled, slamming a servo next to where Starscream was slumped. "I _was_ gonna put all our drinks on my tab, a little _gift_ from me to set things straight, but you can pay for it yourself!" All Skywarp left behind was an empty barstool, drained glasses and his disappointment ringing in his brothers' audios. Usually there was some warning before he teleported, but the usual resonance was drowned out by the bar ambience.

The silence between the remaining Seekers was made only more awkward by the surrounding cheers as another act finished up on stage. Starscream didn't bother seeing who they were, instead focusing his gaze and digits down on his empty glass. A broken reflection frowned back at him, a picture of pity. His wings hung so low as to almost touch the floor, and his spark brewed uncomfortably in the claustrophobic confines of his spark chamber. He dared a glance over at Thundercracker, seeing much of the same in his slumped over stance.

"Cybertron was quite lonely without you two idiots," he eventually admitted, half hoping his voice would catch in his glass and not carry over to Thundercracker's audios. Primus didn't award drunks though, and the blue Seeker's helm looked up.

"Yes," he agreed with a curt nod. "I've... missed you both too."

Starscream glanced over at him, for once not as a throw-away glare. "You of all bots should know high-grade makes some..." He grunted out a cough. "Hidden feelings surface at the worst times. You know I was hurt and disappointed and... so damn angry..."

Thundercracker threw a doubtful glance over at him. "If that's your attempt at an excuse, then it's a pretty weak one, don't you think?" he asked, swallowing his distaste with a gulp from his glass. "Even _you_ can do better than that..."

Starscream realised then that he wasn't going to make this easy for either of them. "TC, I ..." he began without knowing where to even finish. Luckily for him, Thundercracker interrupted on cue.

"How often do you think I've wished for Scraplets on your and Warp's necks?"

"...At least once a day," Starscream replied with a microscopic smile.

Thundercracker sighed against his glass. "Brother, you have no idea..."

Starscream shuttered his optics, fiddling with just his digits now as his helm almost collided with the bartop.

Thundercracker watched his descent with something like a reluctant pity. "...But just as often, I would have liked to see your dumb face," he admitted. "Even if it meant having to put up with all the stupidity behind it. Primus knows I've missed the good... even the bad times. But the good times most of all. Being with friends, having parties..." As he trailed off, Starscream found the strength to pick himself back up and make optic contact. Even with high-grade making them cloudy, his optics were clearer than Thundercracker had seen in centuries. Prima himself would have envied his purity in that moment.

"We were good at that, weren't we?"Starscream asked, seeing a a grin spreading over his brother's face and catching it as well as they both fondly remembered.

Thundercracker's grin faded as a thoughtfulness overcame him, looking over at the multitude of empty glasses crowding Starscream's area. "Usually _I_ ' _m_ the one who's first drunk..." he said with a nod towards the hoard.

 _"_ That's not really hard, considering how little you can handle," Starscream couldn't help but quip with a smirk. Thundercracker quirked an eyeridge but chose not to restart their argument.

"Anyway..." He finished his drink and turned to Starcream. "I think we've both had enough. If we leave now we might catch Skywarp in the middle of trying to remember the habsuite code."

Starscream's wings perked up ever so slightly, even as his digits still toyed with his glass. "TC, you´re a good friend... and my brother-"

"See, the best way to put up with you is when you're drunk," Thundercracker said with his own smirk.

"...But I'll know when it's time for me to go," Starscream finished. "I'll stay a little longer."

"Suit yourself," TC said with a sigh, pushing off his seat with a nod to the eavesdropping bartender. "I'm off. For all we know, the little brother's getting mugged as we speak."

"'Little Brother'? You mean Skywarp?" Starscream made a face at the comparison. "But he's just less than a klik younger than-"

"It's an Earth phrase," Thundercracker explained. "It just means he's the one we need to keep our optics on." He stretched his wings out and gestured towards the fresh drink in Starscream's hand. "I'd lay off any more of those nova drinks, scraphead. Don't want someone getting a glimpse of your... more extroverted traits, now do we?" He winked and was off before Starscream could voice any confusion. And it was only after the crowd had swallowed him up did Starscream realise that, just like Skywarp, Thundercracker had left him to pick up the tab for the evening.


	7. Chapter 7

Chromia was only gone for about five klicks, but Windblade knew of galactic cataclysms that took place in the space of just nanoklicks. The look of amusement in her blue friend's optics didn't ease her suspicion that something was awry. At least she'd gotten some weaker drinks as well as the infamous Supernovaes, something that wouldn't floor Windblade as soon as she sipped it.

"What're those?" She hadn't even noticed Skywarp's return until he was practically underneath her; peering curiously at the assorted purples, blues and greens of Caminus' most well known party starters (or enders- it depended on who you asked).

"Nebuloes," Chromia said as she set them down on the table, pulling the three green glasses close to her. "They're for _us_ though, _yours_ are the Supernovaes." She indicated the remaining two drinks, filled to the brim with something that looked like a condensed galaxy, complete with tiny stars winking in the thick liquid.

Skywarp was immediately enamored with them, but Thundercracker raised an eyeridge. "I've never heard of those."

"They're very popular on Caminus," Nautica added, helpful as always just before she planned on getting drunk. TC's doubts were instantly lifted away by her voice, and he happily swiped up the nearest Supernovae glass.

Skywarp took in a healthy swig and swished it around his mouth, clicking his glossa thoughtfully after finally gulping the drink down. "Sweet. Like blended energel," he concluded with slightly puckered lips. All three femmes raised an eyeridge, but didn't say anything about the opinion.

Though he had a secret sweet denta, Thundercracker took a more tentative sip of his own glass, tasting it like his brother, before spluttering it right back out. "Warp, you aft, this is more sour than a lemon!" he yelled through dribbles as the rest dripped down his chin, giving him a liquid beard that only made Skywarp and the femmes laugh harder. Anyone with a glossa not used to Caminus flavourings was never fond of the infamously strong Supernovae taste at first.

"I was thinking it was more sour than Starscream being woken up early," Skywarp offered, braving the rest of his glass and giving a side-glance over to their bar space, only just noticing their trine leader's return. "Speaking of which, we should make sure he isn't bankrupting himself on shots," he said with a nod over to Starscream, expertly diverting the rest of TC's lingering annoyance at the prank. They bid farewell, with special attention to Nautica as usual. She watched them departing with a wistful gaze, then a more intense look over at Starscream before turning to Windblade with a nudge in her side.

"He has a point, Windy. Isn't your jack of hearts going a little heavy on the drink?"

Windblade almost choked on her first sip of her Nebuloe, giving an accurate impersonation of Thundercracker's splutters. "He's not my 'jack of hearts'!" she protested with very liberal use of air quotes around Nautica's assumption. The purple femme rolled her optics in an overhead tease from the rim of her drink.

"Whatever you say, I'm just saying it looks like _someone's_ gotten him hooked on Hypernovae." Her optics flicked down, then back up in Chromia's direction as she gulped. Chromia frowned just a nanoklick too late to look confused, and hid her face behind her glass just one too early to look innocent.

"Mia!" Windblade scowled, still dabbing some high-grade drops off her chin.

Chromia gave her a sideglance behind the shield of her glass. "What?"

"You know exactly _what._ " Windblade flung a servo towards the bar, where Starscream was slumped over and practically drowning in drink. Bad enough when the drink _wasn't_ the strongest one in the galaxy... "How could you?"

Chromia neglected to feign remorse. "Oh, lighten up, Windblade." She kicked back her peds and tipped back her glass. "For once the 'chosen one' is doing something good for us."

"What, embarrassing himself just so we can have some cheap laughs?"

"Exactly." Chromia finished off her drink with a content sigh. "Happy sparkday to me."

While Windblade looked like she was on the verge of a spark meltdown, Nautica laid her helm in her hands with narrow optics on Chromia. "Ooh, Mia! I hope someone brought a camera!" She twisted her helm around for a better view of the heap of wings and surliness that had become of Starscream, but only bought more of Windblade's wrath on herself.

"Nautica, you too?!"

Chromia hiccuped through a smirk. "She's got the right idea, Windblade. When Primus gives you lemons, make lemonade. And when Primus gives you a drunk afthole in a pit of a bar, make it go viral." But before she could root around her subspace for anything to remember the night by, a flash of light winked out where Skywarp used to be. All he left behind were one drunk and two derelict-faced trinemates.

"Oh, boo," Chromia said with a passing attempt at sympathy. "Looks like the chosen one and his buddies haven't had such a great evening."

Nautica tilted her helm, pouting under lidded optics. "Aw, too bad! And it was just starting to look promising..." She sighed, snatching her glass up from behind her and swilling it with a servo draped over the back of her seat. "At least TC's stuck around."

Windblade still scowled at Chromia's lackadaisical apathy, soothing herself by following Nautica's gaze over to the remaining Seekers. Starscream collapsing under his own wings and mumbling to the coasters, Thundercracker looking like a petrorabbit praying to be run over. The scene fit the setting but had no place featuring these proud brothers, Starscream especially reduced to a bloated metal slug.

Windblade might have brought herself over to him if Nautica didn't hold her back with a tipsy thought let loose.

"Do you think they're ticklish?"  
"What?"  
Nautica took another slurp from her glass, rolling her other wrist around. "You know... Seekers, do they all have a ticklish spot'?" Starscream wasn't the only drunk one this evening, it seemed. "I mean you should know, wings and all, is it all the same place for mechs?"

Windblade raised an eyeridge, leaning away from her. "Don't look at me, the only buttons I know are ones _not_ to push." That held true with Starscream at least, and his a thousand and one hair trigger tantrums.

Chromia meanwhile spat out a groan at her musings. "Nautica, where Seekers are concerned, pretty frames don't make up for all the slag in their processors from having their helms so far up their own afts."

The purple femme pouted again with a sigh, cupping her chin and still gazing across. " I'd love to find out where it is..." She showed some glinting denta in a sudden grin. "And some other 'sensitive' places while I'm at it..."

"Nautica!" Chromia threw her peds back down and made a disgusted look while Windblade struggled to hold in laughter. "Primus, they're not all just big walking spikes for you to prod and look at!" She held a hand to her forehelm while Nautica rolled her optics, still sipping and staring at the bar.

"Fine, fine, I won't talk about them anymore!" she swore, throwing one servo up as the other dropped her empty glass back on the table. She leaned them back over the top of her booth seating, idly twitching a knee as her pout refused to fade. A classic sparkling-level sulk. It lasted for all of two klicks before something light her optics up again.

"...D'you think Cybertron has strip clubs?"

Just as she recovered, Windblade was sent laughing all over again while Chromia groaned with the planet's weight in her vocaliser. "You complain about _me_ ruining evenings, but you let Little Miss Nympho here fill her tanks with high-grade and run her processor off like a damn drone!"

Nautica took on a sheepish look, optics swimming away in her sockets. "I'm just saying... might be a good way to find out more about Cybertron mechs. Pure scientific research, I swear!"

Chromia scoffed skeptically, folding her servos over and holding her helm up high. "At least _I_ can control myself around guys, with or _without_ being sober."

Windblade might have questioned that if not for the giant parting the crowd as he approached them, all bristling plates and guns. She tapped Nautica's shoulder, only wrenching her attention away from the Seekers when his shadow started to fall over the table.

Chromia noted the sudden silence with optics blinking back open and a confused look at her friends. "What are you two gawking at now?"

Before either of them could point, a red hand hesitantly tapped Chromia's shoulder. With her helm turned her expression was hidden, but it was all too easy to imagine mouth hanging open and optics going wide as they took in Ironhide's arrival.

"Evenin', Chromia." He drew his hand away as if her shoulder was burning, hiding the other behind his back. "I heard it was your sparkday, and... well, I don't know nothin' about Caminus rituals, but..." His hidden servo appeared bearing crystal flowers and a box of energon pralines. "Every femme likes flowers and candy, right?" He met her optics for the first time with a nervous smile brighter than all the neon signs in Praxus.

Chromia took the gifts mutely, expression still hidden from her friend's greedy gazes. "Y-Yeah, I... thanks, Ironhide." The gratitude was more sincere than anything Chromia would have let slip to anyone else, especially in front of Windblade and Nautica.

They only had to wait a few nanoklicks, a glance down at her laden servos and then back up at Ironhide, before he leaned down to let crimson servos pull Chromia up into the kiss everyone had been waiting for- at least, everyone in the bar taking notice from the cheers that spread around like wildfire. Nautica looked like she might swoon, and Windblade could feel her wings fluttering. Wide blue optics closed slowly as Chromia gladly gave in, pulling Ironhide's face closer with needy digits around his helm. Deaf to the audience of approval, blind to her friend's grins, Chromia only released her lips from him so she could see his face.

The whole experience left her more tipsy than all the drinks of the evening, grinning against the curve of Ironhide's lips and inhaling his content sigh for herself. "Happy sparkday to me..."


	8. Chapter 8

With a bar bill that kept growing by the klick to look forward to, Starscream forced himself to make the rest of his drink horde last. The spaces left by Skywarp and Thundercracker's absences quickly filled with other drunken strangers, frames bloated and bulging off their creaking seats. The night was dragging on, and the collective buzz of community was starting to wear off, fizzling out with every glass of high-grade drained to dregs.

He grimaced as his wing tips scraped along the filthy floor, the wide plates lacking the strength to stay erect. Pride meant nothing to the rusted masses pressing in on him- all bots were the same when they were purging their tanks in a gutter.

Strange, how easily melancholy seized him with no trine to distract him from it. Starscream was taking in the last of his current Hypernovae when a sudden rally of cheers almost made him choke on it. Static prickled harshly in his vocaliser, the thudding ache in his processor increasing tenfold as applause thundered down on his audios, creating a crushing pressure on his helm. He licked his grimace free of spilled high-grade, shoved his empty glass aside and almost shattering it on the ground as he wrenched himself around in his seat, wings notching the shoulder of some surly giant on his left. He could feel a glare drilling into his helm, giving the pressure a sharp point right into his processor, but the mech seemed too enthralled in the clapping erupting all over the bar to accost him, thank Primus.

It took a few nanoklicks for Starscream's optics to stop swimming, but when they gained focus he still had to squint to dissect the scene over by the femmes' table.

Chromia, the Cityspeaker's bodyguard, practically melting in the servos of a mech twice her size. The cherry-red plating made it most likely that it was Ironhide.

 _'As if I needed any help with wanting to throw up,'_ he thought murkily, with memories of lingering looks and touches that always lasted a nanoklick longer than necessary between them starting to stew in his processor. As cringe-inducing as the attraction between them was, if it was as obvious to a mech as unromantic as him how could they have ever hoped to keep it their little secret from a whole planet of nosy bots desperate for some joy after a galaxy-wide war?

Windblade seemed happy about the new development at least, wings fluttering like a lilleth's against the wind. His own dorsal joints twitched slightly, fighting against the weight of the alcohol sludging in his fuel lines. Either out of some kind of reach for joy himself or a drunken whim, he raised his servos to clap as well-

Only to force his elbow into the same mech who took a wing to the shoulder towering over him. Blue armour with a stark orange faceplate and a black patch where his left optic should have been, gestalt size from where Starscream was sitting. And just as drunk as him, from the amount of high-grade dripping down his chest.

"Watch where you're flailing those things, flyboy!" he snapped, pointing an empty glass at him while the other shifted into a tarnished hammer. Under usual circumstances, Starscream's diplomacy training or centuries of experience begging forgiveness from bots bigger than him (whichever kicked in first) would have saved him from having it slam into his face.

Hypernovae-soaked glossas never held themselves back, though.

"Oh, sorry, I wouldn't want to dent your dime-store paint job, would I?" he scoffed, promptly forgetting the gestalt and turning back to his drinks.

"Breakdown, baby, are you really going to just let him insult you like that?" a femme's voice asked with tinged disbelief, the sculpted tone of a master manipulator. Only after hearing it, knowing she was no doubt better than him at the exploitation game, Starscream began to worry.

There was a sound like a hammer smacking against a hand. "Like the damn Pit I am- HEY!" The mech called Breakdown clamoured in Starscream's audio, reaching for one of his lazy wings when he didn't respond. "I'm talking to you, slag head!"

Starscream somehow only spilled the top froth of his drink from being wrenched around, still gulping from it as Breakdown bared down on him.

"You owe me another drink," he said, placing his empty glass upside down on the bartop with a hard thump that somehow didn't break the glass. "And one for the lady, while you're at it." The glint of his hammer pointed just behind him, towards a peculiar looking femme with black armour and spindly rods stretching out her back, some of them draped over the mech's shoulders. Never before did a puppet metaphor fit so well.

Starscream finished his glass, replying in a hybrid of a burp and a bark of laughter. "I don't think so," he snorted out, shaking his helm despite how it made everything slam together in a blurry haze. "You should be thanking me, really. Just half of that drink would have knocked you into stasis, I bet."

There was a significant gap between his slurs and outrage flaring on Breakdown's face, turning the orange to bright red and making his optic pop out wide enough to make up for his missing one. "You calling me a fragging lightweight?!" he snarled, bracing one servo on the bartop while the other weaponised one hovered in a rough path to Starscream's chin. The femme leaned in with her date, betraying fangs over her plum lips as they smirked.

Starscream just laughed again. "Primus, I know your processor must be slow under there, but it shouldn't take that long to realise-"

That was round about when the hammer found a snug place in his faceplate.

Though Starscream couldn't take in an accurate assessment of the bar while flying backwards through the air (and not in any way he was used to), from how quickly chaos erupted and the dent he found in his spinal strut much later on, he concluded that Breakdown knocked him back into an even larger mech, who shoved him into a pack of Predacons, who slammed him in the way of a femme's ped as it kicked up at someone else's chin. However it went, he was somehow airborne again above what was now a full blown bar brawl.

Almost subconsciously, his thrusters spluttered to life in a desperate instinct to save himself from plummeting into the writhing mass of bots slamming into each other below. He stopped just short of a chainsaw blade ripping at the air, trying to tear its way through a barrier of servos, before his overcharged tanks lurched and he had to land before he purged all over the battlefield. Ramming into a stack of empty high-grade barrels, Starscream was at least on the edge of the brawl and its deafening soundtrack of roars, grunts and whining machinery while he tried to keep down his entire credit account's worth of drinks. Flying after just one drink was bad enough; flying while absolutely hammered (literally in his case) was an easy death sentence for any Seeker.

The fact that he survived the emergency landing didn't mean his spark was safe, considering he'd landed in the middle of a very drunken warzone. And there was a familiar set of black plating swimming in the dizzy haze covering his optics.

"Oh, there you are."

He recognised the voice as Breakdown's date just before two knives stabbed into his wings, hauling him upwards by his screaming joints to properly face her with his back pinned to the wall. There was a sharp sting around his wrists and his servos failed to raise themselves up. The rods at her back glinted with even more knives hanging in front of his faceplate, but none of them were as sharp as the fangs that grinned a predator smile at him. Energon had filled his mouth already, starting to leak through his lips. Everything else, the acid pink of her optics melting into her dark armour, was a messy blur.

"Breakdown's a little occupied with rearranging a poor red medic's faceplate right now, but I'm sure he won't mind if I have a turn with you," she said, pulling him up even higher with his wings skidding against the wall. He was forced to look down at her, uselessly flailing the dead weight of his servos in a vain hope of connecting with one of those perilously thin legs- they should have at least buckled by now, straining under his weight, but they stayed solid even as he tried kicking out at her servos keeping his own held down.

"Usually I like taking time with the cute ones..." She sighed, hovering a leg-razor around his faceplate and almost dragging it through the soft stained metal. "But unfortunately for you I've never been one to cheat, so..."

She might have plunged the razor through one of his optics, to better match her boyfriend maybe, if not for a lump of grey metal and claws slamming into her side and sending her veering to the floor. Her legs released his wings just in time for him to avoid rolling along with her, using what little wits he had left to swerve to the other side. Now instead of a very sinister spider bearing down on him, he was only surrounded by a trio of cone-headed mechs that he would have called Seekers if they weren't so horrendously ugly (he couldn't dredge up many names in his whirlwind processor, but he did remember that the one Megatron once called "Squidhead" went by Thrust).

He might have actually managed to dredge up a strategy for escaping if it wasn't for a stray wing knocking him right back into the thick of the fight, smacking against bodies as if he was trapped in a violent pinball machine. It was at least a klick until he was spat out on the other side of the bar, sprawled on the floor with at least one of his wings almost hanging off its flight cables. He held a hand to the aching joint and coughed up a drizzle of energon, praying that he looked dead enough for no-one to bother with kicking him.

To his luck, only two very similar looking bots lingered here- a mech and a fellow Seeker femme being held back by her wings. She seemed familiar, in a distant way his drowned processor couldn't hope to decipher.

"Lyzack, for the last time, you are not getting involved!" the mech hissed, straining to keep the femme in his grasp despite her small frame.

"Let... go, Leo!" she yelled, digging her peds into the floor and leaving thin grooves with her heels. Realising she was getting nowhere by running, she resorted to trying to pry the mech's digits off her wings. "I'm not a Primus-damn baby anymore! I don't need you to-"

Starscream finally summoned the strength to pick himself up and, more importantly, interrupt. "Oi, you two!"

The two bots ceased struggling against each other; switching their attention over to him like he was an energon stain that spontaneously grew a mouth. Starscream kept himself upright with a firm grip on a pipe jutting out from the wall. But before he could get himself into his default state of bossing bots around, the femme spoke.

"Commander Starscream?"

As a glaze of confusion congealed over his pounding helm, recognition clouded the drunken arrogance of her expression. Even with all his faculties running smoothly Starscream would have had no idea what to say to her.

"Excuse me?" he asked, with reluctant humility.

The femme's faceplate curdled, and she looked a nanoklick away from scratching his optics out. The mech had joined her side, giving Starscream a cautious once-over as if he'd collapse at any klick.

"Starscream?" He repeated his sibling's question with a wary look at her. "Ly', don't tell me he's another one of your ex-boyfri-"

"Don't be an idiot, Leozack," she interrupted in a scoff as anger started to harden in her optics. Starscream's processor was practically overflowing as he tried to conjure even the barest memory of her.

Then a faint turquoise outline snuck in from somewhere and slapped him across the face.

"Oh. _Ohhh_ , yes... I remember you, Lyzack," he said, with a smirk like an oil stain. "That timid little medic-"

Then she exploded. "I am not timid!" Either drink or the years had given her vocaliser a whole new depth that made her rage rattle in Starscream's frame. Out of all the enemies he'd ever made she wasn't one of the more obviously deadly ones, but even he knew better than to underestimate the wrath of a scorned femme.

That is, he knew better when he was sober.

"That's not what I remember…" He couldn't help a chuckle bubbling out. "But from the looks of things you really have grown out of your shell-"

Again Lyzack interrupted, as her optics twitched along with her digits. "You'll remember me a lot better when I drive my ped up your-"

Her servo was starting to climb, as if compelled to knock into his faceplate.

"Don't you dare raise your servo at me!" Starscream shrieked, almost slapping her arm aside as his shot up in defense. "I am the leader of Cyber-!"

"And I am a warrior!"

He earned a second dent in his faceplate as her fist crashed forward into it, sending him backwards on the floor. This time he didn't try to get back up, watching the siblings through a veil of static covering his optics.

"I've been waiting so long to do that," Lyzack said in a proud laugh, shaking her wrist as if the punch hurt her just as much.

Leozack looked down on Starscream with a quirked eyeridge. "Not often you see a mech knocked out in the first round... but I guess not many mechs meet your fist," he huffed proudly. "But we should probably make ourselves scarce. You _did_ just deck the leader of Cybertron, after all."

The victory painted on Lyzack's face drained. "…Oh slag, really?"

"Well, he certainly isn't on all the planet's screens for his looks." There was a thud as the mech's ped tapped against Starscream's helm. "Doesn't look like he'll be getting up any time soon, so chances are he won't even remember us."

Lyzack followed her brother's gaze as she experimented with pinging a digit on the Seeker's chest. "And if he does?"

Leo shrugged as he started to walk away. "Then you can get Father to bail you out of jail."

"You aft!" Lyzack stood up to rush after him. Unconsciousness was merciful enough to hover at the edges of his awareness just for a few nanoklicks, long enough for his audios to catch the clang of metal as she leapt onto Leozack's back before the silent static consumed him.


	9. Chapter 9

"I think this is the first time I've been at a brawl I didn't start."

From their makeshift haven in one of the platform booths, Chromia huffed a laugh of agreement as she surveyed the mayhem. "You took the words right out of my mouth, Ironhide... as well as some of my high-grade."

Ironhide might have been blushing before he had to duck to avoid some poor bot's leg thrown out of the fight and almost colliding with his face. Windblade was watching along with the new happy couple, leaning over the platform railing, but not for an easy laugh or to look out for stray body parts and scrap filling the air. She was looking for someone very specific, very abrasive and, from how he looked at the bar with Chromia loading him full of Hypernovaes, very drunk. The mass was too thick though, too full of frames clanging against each other and chips of paint fluttering to the ceiling. Even a mech as conspicuous as Starscream was instantly swallowed by it.

Nautica seemed more preoccupied with keeping her drink steady and armour undented than observing the chaos unfolding beneath them, but she did notice her red friend striding towards the booth's stairs and the unconscious mech at the bottom with energon bubbling through the mask over his mouth.

"Where are you going, Windblade?" Nautica asked, licking at a line of high-grade shining on her top lip.  
Windblade stopped at the top of the stairs, casting a look back over the railing for another nanoklick-long scan of the brawl. "There's an aft with wings somewhere in the middle of all that," she said. "And something tells me he's not gonna be able to fly out of this by himself."

"Aha! I knew you liked him!" Nautica squealed triumphantly, almost toppling over as she stretched a servo out to point at her.

"I'd do the same for anyone else!" Windblade protested, almost flinching away from the accusation. "Even you, if you weren't getting on my nerve nodes."

Nautica just gave a lopsided smile. " _Suuuure_ you would," she slurred. "Have fun tracking down your boyfriend!"

Windblade just groaned in reply. As she spread her wings open Nautica started up a drunken refrain of " _Windy and Screamy sitting in a tree."_ That was her final incentive to get away from the platform and power her thrusters, leaping up to catch the air and soaring over the madness below.

There was no wind inside the building, but the congregation of so many frames made thermal updrafts for her to coast on, keeping her out of range of the usual brawl projectiles. She tuned her optics to pick out reds and faint pinks, in case Starscream's plating was more energon than paint by now.

Surprisingly he wasn't in the middle of an epic fight with a gestalt team or using a poor Minicon to bludgeon bots with; instead he was on his back, at the edge of the battlefield, stasis locked with a dent in his faceplate. Windblade lowered herself to land next to him, narrowly avoiding an empty high-grade tank skimming her cockpit.

"Oh, Starscream, you idiot..." She didn't need Nightbeat by her side to see what had happened- someone hadn't appreciated his 'charming cockiness' and decided to straighten out his smirk with their fist. Windblade wiped a trail of energon from the corner of his fallen mouth with a digit, almost expecting him to spring awake and balk at being touched. But he was still, silent, almost peaceful. Windblade couldn't help wondering if this was how he recharged as a blip came from her comm unit.

 _"Windblade, are you doing something stupid again?"_ Chromia's voice was already loaded with a scolding tone for the obvious answer.

 _"_ Yes." The feed crackled with the blue femme's sigh as Windblade tried to prop Starscream up and relieve his own weight from his wings.

" _Hang on, we're coming..."_

Windblade was still trying to haul the Seeker up when her friends arrived, Ironhide and Chromia practically throwing bots aside and Nautica still drinking as they made their way to her location.

"You made me leave a perfectly good view for _this_ creep?!" Chromia cried, throwing her servos out over Starscream's comatose frame.

"I dunno, I kinda enjoyed the exercise," Ironhide said, rolling one of his shoulder joints as the servo in it slammed backwards into a random bot's helm.

"I told you she _liiiiikes_ him, 'Mia," Nautica giggled, to the tune of two pairs of optics rolling to the ceiling.

"Just help me get him out of here, okay?" Windblade sighed, still straining her legs trying to push Starscream upright. "Just because he's an aft doesn't mean he should be left to rust on the floor."

"That's exactly why he _should_ be left," Chromia muttered, punching an incoming tankard out of the air before folding her servos over her chest.

"How are we supposed to carry him?" Nautica asked, lifting one of his servos up by the wrist and shaking it. "He must weigh as much as a turbofo-"

"Step aside," Chromia ordered, placing her peds apart and stretching her servos out to crack her digits, before kneeling down to wrap one servo around Starscream's shoulders with the other draping around his waist. She grimaced at having to touch the clammy metal. "You owe me so much for this, Windblade..." As she stood up she hauled the Seeker over her shoulder as if was a sack of ener-grains, even as she started groaning. "Frag's sake, either his aft his heavy or I'm getting old." She spun on a ped towards the seething brawl again with a nod at the red mech beside her. "Ironhide, baby, make a path for us."  
"On it." Ironhide was only too happy to dive right back into the throng and practically pave bots aside as he ran them through. Chromia led the way with the sleeping Seeker on her back and Nautica cradling her drink safely to her chest. Windblade just tried not to stand on any trampled frames as they made for the exit.

 **xx**

Windblade knew his apartment wasn't too far away from Maccadam's, but Chromia still wasn't happy about having to drag Starscream all the way down the block.

"Primus knows how he gets in the air when he weighs as much as Megatron's aft..." she grumbled, only too glad to dump him down by the front door when Windblade pointed it out. Nautica looked around for a trash bin for her finished drink, before deciding to just throw it aside on the ground.

"Aren't we gonna put him inside?" she asked, to a bitter laugh from Chromia as she stretched her spinal strut out.  
"Be my guest, but I'd rather stick claws in my optics than go any closer to our 'dear leader's' lair. Besides..." Chromia looked behind her to where Ironhide was waiting on the other side of the street. "I have a date waiting. Thanks for the night out, though. Let's do it again sometime without the Seeker infestation." She obviously wasn't one for farewells as she turned around, almost running towards Ironhide as they disappeared into the late evening.

Windblade shuttered her optics and edged the door to the apartment open, preparing to drag Starscream through it. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to, Nautica," she said through a groan as she pulled on his wings. Nautica seemed to stand still, kicking her peds together and studying them both.

"Do you like him, Windblade?" she asked. Windblade sighed, ready to deliver a firm no before she looked up and saw the purple femme's faceplate. There was still a glaze over her optics, but her features were curious in a much more innocent way. Whatever she was told here wouldn't find its way into Cybertron's gossip circles.

"Not even in a... romantic way, just... do you _like_ him?" Nautica repeated.

Windblade blinked, servos still wound around Starscream's frame as she actually thought about it for once. "He's a complete pain in the aft and one of the worst mechs I've ever met," she said slowly. "...But yeah, I guess I do a little. Is that a dumb thing to do?" Windblade shrugged with an almost guilty look up at Nautica, expecting to see some kind of triumph but only finding a thoughtfulness that didn't suit her expression.

"Yeah," Nautica told her with a small smile, copying her shrug. "But dumb things aren't always bad, you know. I'll see ya tomorrow, Windy."

Even after Nautica had turned down the other street, Windblade was left still thinking over her advice. Was it something that floated up from the tiny lucid part of her processor or inspired by her tipsiness?

She wasn't quite ready to trust that advice either way.

It was a wonder she hadn't woken anyone up with the amount of groans and metal grinding against the floor that echoed down the corridor as she hauled Starscream inside, but she finally made it outside his door without snapping her spinal strut. She didn't know the code to get in but there was a hand scanner just below the keypad, and holding Starscream's servo over it allowed the door to slide open for them.

The interior was dark, and his trine didn't seem to be inside. The main room branched off into three smaller ones, and she assumed Starscream's quarters would be the largest one. The berth seemed moulded specially for his wings, and she at least tried to roll him the right way onto its surface. A small lamp stood up on a berthside table, and she switched it on just bright enough to cast light over his battered frame. Dried energon had turned the red on his frame to a sickly carmine colour, and even the grey of his faceplate seemed pale.

"What has the world done to you, Starscream?" she whispered, kneeling down and cautiously stroking at the deep dent on his face. As her hand moved away from his optics, they started to split open in tiny beams of red light.

"Windblade..." Her hand snapped away, and she poised herself for a quick escape. But surprisingly enough, Starscream didn't screech at her to leave to hurl accusations at her. His mouth twitched and gloss flicked over his dry lips as they did something strange.

They _smiled_ at her _._

"You look like a goddess..." His glossa was so heavy she barely heard him at first, or that might have just been shock muffling her audios. The punch must have done a lot more than knock him out, and she actually worried for his processor before something else bubbled past his lips in a content mumble.

"I can´t wait to overload in your pretty little mouth..."

Despite a tinge of disgust in her spark, Windblade felt herself blushing, and she was grateful that his optics had squeezed closed again. "Time for you to sleep, handsome," she said quietly, absently patting one of his hands as she stood up and switched the lamp off. He'd wake up in darkness with a splitting hangover, hopefully with one of his trinemates watching over and with no memory of the last few breems.

Mostly he just yawned and muttered as she walked away, but there was one last sentence she caught as she reached the front door.

"Our sparklings would be sooo cute…"

A smile played at her lips, but it flickered out as quickly as the lights passing overhead as she closed the door and made to leave.


End file.
